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A TV journalist who has reported extensively on varied matters, from politics, religion, breaking news events to natural disasters. This is an attempt to create a space for larger and deeper issues that don't make the headlines. At least not enough

Month: April 2016

Amidst the stream of news reports on the severe drought across India, here is one that didn’t make it to primetime.

It’s the story of Yogita Ashok Desai from Maharashtra’s Beed district who died of a heat stroke. The 12-year-old was dehydrated and collapsed after her fifth trip to the village hand-pump to fetch water. Just last month, a 10-year-old girl from Pimpalgaon village, also in Beed district, died after she fell into a well while trying to draw water.Both girls had been pulled out of school to help their families cope with the severe water scarcity.

The reasons for the worsening drought are many; many of them manmade like the indiscriminate digging of borewells and the cultivation of water guzzling crops. Decisions that women had little to do with. excluded as they are from choices relating to irrigation systems or what crops to grow. However, they are facing the worst impact.

Most vulnerable are the poor and marginalized, and within that group, women and children. There are various studies that show that women, especially in developing countries like India, suffer the impacts of natural disasters and climate change more due to cultural norms.

In rural areas, women rarely work and are economically dependent on their husbands for survival. Faced with a severe drought, men have the resources and the independence to find ways to adapt. Women are denied those options.

Faced with a shortage of food, women place their husbands’ and sons’ needs above theirs or their daughters’, making them vulnerable to diseases.

Faced with income or food crunch, girls’ get hit the hardest. They get pulled out of school and are expected to help with the household chores. Their nutrition and health gets neglected. Climate change also affects availability of water. Women and girls’ are expected to fetch water for the family, often traveling long distances to do so.

As Rachel Yavinsky points out in her 2012 study, their secondary role and lack of decision-making power severely limits women’s ability to adapt to climate change.

“Without participation by women, programs to replace traditional crops with those better suited to the changing environment might focus only on the needs of men’s fields and not address the problems women face with household gardens’, says Yavinsky.

She points to various studies that demonstrate how women can be effective agents of adapting to climate change if equipped with information and power. In Bangladesh, for instance, women farmers switched to raising ducks because they kept losing their chickens to frequent floods.

Empowering women, especially rural women, is necessary to address climate change effectively. Climate change will affect all os us, most of all women, and unless we empower them, building a sustainable future will remain a distant dream.

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“We get pushed around and treated like garbage because there is no one to speak for us,” says Chandni, the 18-year-old editor of India’s only tabloid paper produced by street-children journalists, Balaknama (Hindi for “voice of children”).

Like all editors, Chandni’s biggest challenge is to decide which stories will make it to the front page, and managing the egos of those whose stories don’t. “As editor, I want to play up stories that are most impactful,” says Chandni. “But many reporters get upset when their stories don’t make the mark. So, yes, I do have to tread carefully.”

Related: Can India’s military veterans join the fight for women’s rights?

The monthly newspaper has a team of 60 reporters between 12 and 20 years old and is based in Delhi and neighbouring states of Haryana, Madhya Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh. Most of the street-children reporters were recruited from learning centres run by NGOs the Federation for Street and Working Children (Badhte Kadam) and the NGO Childhood Enhancement through Training and Action (Chetna), which started Balaknama in 2003.

A lot of time is spent on writing the stories. “Many of our reporters started school after joining the paper so writing is a struggle for them,” says Chandni. The copy is written in Hindi and later translated into English.

Each paper is priced at a token 2 rupees and over 8,000 copies, most of them in Hindi, are published every month. Many of them are distributed free to police stations and NGOs working in the field of child rights. The paper makes no profit and is entirely NGO-funded.

Regardless, the sense of pride and accomplishment is evident.

“We filed a report on how the police was forcing children living in railway stations to retrieve the bodies of people who were killed on the tracks,” says Shambhu, 20, a senior reporter. “Imagine forcing a child to go down those dangerous tracks and retrieve bloody, mangled limbs!”

Mainstream news outlets picked up Balaknama’s report and it led to a huge outrage. Eventually, the National Committee for Protection of Child Rights stepped in and action was taken against the police.

Related: Pedal power: how bicycles are changing what it means to be a girl in India

An estimated 51,000 children live on Delhi’s streets, some as young as five-years-old. They make a living by begging or rag picking and are subject to verbal, physical and sexual abuse. Many are abandoned by their families or have run away from home.

Twelve-year-old Rustam is one of the lucky ones. He lives with his construction-worker parents but, like his three brothers and sister, missed out on school because he had to supplement the family income.

He started feeding Balaknama reporters stories last year and got a front-page splash when he alerted a senior reporter about a child marriage in June 2015. He was taken aback by what followed. “Local activists held protests and the police were forced to step in and stop the marriage from taking place. I became known in my neighbourhood and my parents felt so proud,” he glows.

For nearly a year now, Rustam has stopped begging and studies at a learning centre. He is paid a small fee for every story lead that he gives.

This feeling of empowerment is what Balaknama wants to foster among street kids. It does this by highlighting, not just the difficulties they face, but also stories of hope.

Positive reports about street kids who return lost items or help get back stolen goods get prioritised. “Street children feel worthless and hated by the world and we are trying to change that,” says Sanno, 20, a former Balaknama editor, who now advises the team.

Related: The women who refuse to do India’s dirtiest job

Balaknama also looks at larger policy-level issues. The paper campaigned to get street kids in Delhi national identity cards called Aadhar, which give proof of residence and when available, date of birth.

The paper has recently been focusing on the implications of the changes to the Juvenile Justice Act that allows children between the ages of 16-18 years to be tried as adults for crimes like rape and murder. The amended act has been criticised by child rights activists who say it could be misused to implicate innocent minors and that it would undermine the aim of reforming juvenile criminals. Balaknama has taken a strong position on the issue.

“Many street kids don’t have families,” says Chandni. “They don’t even know their date of birth and they have become vulnerable now. A 15-year-old can be turned into a 19-year-old.” She believes it’s a sign of how much farther they have to go to make India’s estimated 400,000 street children visible to those who matter.

“When authorities talk about children’s rights, they are looking at school-going children, with homes and families. No one is looking at the child living on the streets, or labouring inside homes and hotels. They still don’t exist.” Balaknama is determined to change this attitude by enabling street children to tell their own stories, in their own words.

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That the Indian government is thinking on the lines of imposing a tax on sugary drinks and junk food is welcome news. Given the alarming rise of diabetes in India, there is active intervention needed to control the rise.

A WHO report says that the number of people with diabetes in India is likely to cross 101 million by 2030, while Lancet published a study just a day before World Health Day that said there has been a fourfold increase in the number of diabetics from 1980 to 2014 – from 108 million to 422 million. It ranks China, India and the US are among the top three countries with the most number of people with diabetes.

Prevalence has more than doubled for men in India and risen 80% among women. While the incidence is higher in urban areas with states in the South reporting especially high rates, what is worrying is the rise in rural India, a result of rapid urbanization.

Of special concern is Gestational Diabetes Melitus (GDM), which remains neglected in India and has a severe impact on child and maternal health. G
DM is linked to hypertension, eclampsia and obstructed labour, and is among the leading causes of maternal deaths.

India has one of the highest rates of GDM in the world, with over five million women affected every year. While the worldwide prevalence figure is 15%, in India it is 22 to 25%.

The increasing prevalence of GDM is linked to growing urbanization, reduced levels of physical activity, and changes in dietary patterns and rising obesity

Women with gestational diabetes are also more likely to develop Type 2 diabetes in the future and therefore special attention needs to be paid to this population in India.

A 2013 study by the Kerala-based Achutha Menon Centre for Health Science Studies found that women diabetics are even more vulnerable as they cannot abandon their role of looking after the family and are expected to put the health of other family members above their own. This leaves them with far less time and resources for their own health.

One major reason for the rapid rise in India is lack of awareness. A 2012 study by the Brussels-based International Diabetes Federation found that over 60% of diabetics in India had never been screened or diagnosed because of this, while over 63% were unaware of the complications that arise from the disease.

A combination of food patterns, sedentary lifestyles, obesity and genetics makes Indians more vulnerable to diabetes. It is time we acknowledge that and tackle the problem at a war footing.

Apart from nationwide screening programmes, early detection and treatment must become a part of primary health services. Awareness has to be created about dietary habits as well, with greater emphasis on fiber rather than sugar and starches.